snow again

Woke up yesterday to yet more snow so I decided to use it to try some snow-dyeing. I was hoping the snow would last long enough for me to prepare the fabrics, and it did. So, having cut roughly A4 size pieces of various white fabrics, I washed them to remove any finishing on the fabric, soaked them in a soda ash solution for 30 minutes and was then ready to start. I think any of my neighbours looking out would have thought I was mad collecting fresh snow in a big bowl! Some of the fabrics I folded into strips, the rest were just loosely scrunched up and they were put into a couple of containers. I decided to try a mix of yellows for one batch (lemon yellow, golden yellow and a rust orange) and for the other I used ice blue, midnight blue and raspberry. I covered the fabrics with the snow and as I was using procion dye powders, wore a mask to just sprinkle the powder randomly over the snow. The containers were then covered and left for the dye and snow to do their work. I did think that being indoors the snow would melt fairly quickly but was really surprised how long it lasted, even after 6 hours there was still a residue left.

These are the two containers with the dyes sprinkled over.

The next part was the hardest, actually leaving them without poking about to see if it was working! They were left for the rest of the day and overnight before being rinsed in cold water first and then warm water to remove any residual dye, and then left to dry.

Here are the blues/raspberry fabrics. As you can see the take up varied depending on the fabrics used. The colours are slightly brighter than the photos show and I was pleased with some of the effects obtained. The thicker linen type fabric didn't take up very much detail at all but I do like the hazy colour variation.

The yellows were a real disappointment! The rust orange didn't take at all and the two yellows didn't have enough definition to look very good. I had used some lace, which being synthetic, I didn't really think would work well. I was right, it just ended up a creamy colour with no detail.

Anyway, it was a different fun dyeing technique to try and I have some fabrics to use in future projects. 

At the time I didn't have the right coloured dye powders to do any fabric in my current project colours but, looking at the effects achieved, I'm not sure this technique would work very well as I'm aiming for a more controlled linear look. More on that later. 

more drawing

I should have spent the last few days drawing and painting for my next project but seem to have a bit of a block as I've only managed to do a couple of drawings. I think the problem is that I have no idea what sort of end piece I'm aiming for, so it seems any drawings are just random, trying to get inspiration.

Anyway here are shots of some of them.

I've been doing primary source drawings of circuit boards, broken 'phones, wire baskets and I'm now looking at roof structures both modern and those found in churches and cathedrals. Most of the drawings seemed very linear and architectural so I wanted to bring in something more organic. I came across some great photographs of craters such as those on the moon and on Mars and was much taken with the textures, so the drawing development may turn to things 'celestial'. The textures would lend themselves easily to stitch and manipulated fabrics. Hopefully by the next post I'll be a bit clearer in my mind which direction I'm going in.

2 February

Well it's been a while since I posted here, but you know how it is being busy with with Christmas preparations, working frantically for project hand-in, plus I had a long-planned holiday in Finnish Lapland, so posting took a bit of a back seat I'm afraid.

I thought I would show some of the work done so far. The project brief was to build on the work done in sketchbooks applying these drawings to produce a variety of printed and constructed samples.
The techniques included screen-printing, transfer printing, embroidery, applique, cut and slash. knitting, crochet, weaving, dyeing and lino cut and poly-printing. Quite a lot to cover!
Here are a few of the images from my sketchbook as starters.

I decided to go for the pine cones and artichoke as a basis for my screen-printing. It wasn't an ideal choice as once the screens were done I found the options rather limiting. Nevertheless I really enjoyed the process (apart from having to clean the screens between every print if I wanted a colour separation) and had a great time trying to get the colours I'd chosen.

For this project I'd finally gone for a mix of blues, magenta, ecru and a sort of browny fawn as a colour palette reminiscent of my Venice trip.

I also wanted to try using different materials to work with including sheers and PVC and had a few mishaps along the way (such as starting to clean the screen whilst the fabric was still underneath), but eventually I managed to get some serviceable prints. The next step was to add to them in some way either using embroidery, layering, knitting, or in some cases just using the colour palette.

One thing I was looking forward to was doing some free motion embroidery. Disaster struck! I bought a new machine and was assured it would be fine for purpose - it wasn't. The needle shank didn't lift high enough to get an embroidery hoop under so I had to try to get the bottom ring in, then the fabric, then the top ring and tighten up. It would only do a couple of stitches and the darning plate would bounce up and everything went haywire. I tried with and without the darning foot - you name it, I tried it before eventually giving up in despair. Eventually any embroidery done had to be hand sewn or using the standard decorative machine stitches.

print with added hand embroidery and quilting

Here below are some of the samples and finished work.

knit with wrapped yarn couched down

embroidery on canvas 

hand made felt with embroidery

appliqued screen-print with machine and hand stitch

weave with added beads

screen-printed background with embroidered sheer fabric overlaid

printed PVC with added metallic fabric paint

screen and transfer-printed synthetic cut and woven

crochet, cut and slash with machine stitch, printed PVC with hand stitch

print with added hand stitch and knit

printed PVC with reverse appliqued knitting incorporating beads

printed background with crochet

These are just a small sample. I could hardly believe how much there was when I collected everything together. Felt I needed the holiday after that!

The next project seems really exciting - exploring the manipulating, moulding and transforming fabrics into 3D form to produce either a piece of wearable art or an interior object. The choice of themes is either Gothic Luxe, Military or Futuristic. Initially I went for Gothic Luxe but my research and initial drawings now seem to be heading towards Futuristic. I'll post more soon.